1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to electrical spring contact terminals and connector assemblies and more particularly, to an improved spring contact electrical connector assembly including a female receptacle for receiving a mating contact member.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
Various spring contact electrical connector assemblies have been provided in the past for making electrical contact between spring contact electrical terminals and other contact members such as terminal pins, circuit board edge contact pads and others. Such known spring contact terminals typically have a spring portion configured to be deflected when mated with the other contact members so that relatively high deflection forces are required to provide necessary contact forces for reliable electrical connection. Some of the resulting disadvantages are that undesirably high insertion forces are required to overcome the required deflection forces and that the insertion forces are relatively large in comparison with the withdrawal force. Another disadvantage is that an undesirably large amount of space typically is required for the various spring configurations. As consequence of these disadvantages, a desirably small center-to-center terminal spacing cannot be achieved.